-Big, big ol’ four-team trade today. Here’s what interests me the most about it: the Hornets have, effectively, put all of their eggs into the CP3 basket. Collison may be a better player than Ariza straight-up, and is almost certainly a better overall package when you consider their contract situations.
But Ariza fits next to CP3, and will give him an effective wing option with some very good athleticism. (He’s also a spot-up shooter, although his ability to knock down open threes is more than a bit overrated.) As long as Chris Paul has the ball in his hands, Ariza a more effective option than Collison. (Although I will say that I was very interested to see what a Paullison backcourt would have been able to do.)
So here’s the question: did the Hornets make this move because Paul has given them reason to believe he won’t demand a trade/bolt after his contract is up, or did they make the move in an attempt to convince him to stay? And isn’t that the relevant question (that nobody has really been asking) with regards to Gilbert/LeBron? If you want to make things even more interesting on that front, consider that the Hornets now have Trevor Ariza, whom LeBron allegedly wouldn’t give an “I’m staying in Cleveland after 2010″ guarantee to last off-season.
If this is the Hornets trying to pressure/guilt the franchise into giving them a commitment, shouldn’t the fact that LRMR manages Paul and LeBron is CP3′s best friend give them some pause on that front? Although I don’t want to downplay the impact of the Hornets being able to get rid of the Posey contract, the main conclusion I take away from this move is that the Hornets will give up CP3 when someone pries him from their cold, dead hands. Seeing as to how CP3 is legitimately one of the five best players in basketball and I don’t see the Hornets being contenders in the next two seasons, this could end up becoming very ugly.
-I was interested by the reaction to LeBron’s “I’m making mental notes of all the people who took shots at me” tweet. Other than THERE IS NO GOOD REASON FOR LEBRON TO HAVE A TWITTER, my main takeaway from that is this: LeBron’s move to Miami to play with Wade and Bosh, along with LRMR’s involvement in everything, has definitely advanced the “LeBron wants to live Entourage, and doesn’t really care about true greatness” storyline.
Of course, the other side of LeBron’s move to Miami is that he’s now a villain to a large proportion of the fan population. We’ve seen Kobe’s Q rating go through the roof after he embraced a “borderline sociopath” persona — will that be the narrative that takes over if Miami wins it all next season?
The counterpoint, of course, would be that the MJ archetype is that he was a sociopath with his fellow players and a Man of The People to the fans — so far, LeBron’s appeared to be the opposite.
That’s about all I have for tonight. Until tomorrow, all.
Its obvious the Hornets made that trade to please Paul…they dont want to lose him and decided moving Collison away would help things…i dont blame them…gotta do what ya gotta do for the superstar….will it help them keep Paul? who knows..doubt Ariza is the answer or much improvement for the supporting cast surrounding Paul…but we’ll see
In regards to Lebron’s tweet…I dont get it…so now he’s taking mental notes on legit criticisms…and yet he STILL hasn’t explained his ‘elbow injury’ or why he quit in the Boston series (specifically games 5 and 6) and why he left his team for dead but holding out so long before making his decision he knew would be the case all along.
And even if he’s taking these ‘mental notes’ what is he going to prove? he is still going to be second fiddle to Wade….he is still going to be seen as a quitter and he’s is going to be the first major superstar to admit he couldnt take the daily pressure in leading a team to a championship by himself…
Bad move by NOH. We just saw this play out this year. Miami didn’t give in to Wade and refused to commit to long term deals to appease him. They won. The Cavs did exactly what the Hornets are doing, and lost. You don’t give in a to player until that player commits the team. If he doesn’t commit, and leaves, then you keep Collison, who in 2 years might very well be all-star caliber, and is most certainly a better player than Ariza.
1. LeBron is not going to be second fiddle to Wade to anyone other than the 12 Miami Heat fans who *didn’t* jump off the bandwagon over the last three seasons. The fact is that the Heat have stunk and that Wade has missed a ton of time, and those fickle Miami fans left the Heat for dead a long time ago. For all of those Heat fans that left and are coming back, LeBron is the man. And he is certainly going to be the bigger star outside of Miami, which is what matters to him anyway. This whole notion that LeBron James won’t still be clearly the best player in the league and won’t dominate that team is laughable to me. He’s too big for that.
2. As for Collison, the guy is a quintessential “small sample size” player. Y’know, like Trevor Ariza after his 2009 Playoff run. I’m not saying that Collison won’t be good, I’m just saying that he was the point guard on a team that won 37 games last year and quit on its coach. The value for the Hornets is clearly with the wing player who can play 35 minutes per night, not with the point guard who will play 18 minutes with Paul back in there. Depth is great, but it is not nearly as valuable as a strong starting corps, and the Hornets are closer to that than they were before the trade.
NO did the right thing, they traded a bad contract and a back-up pg for a starting wing. With or without CP3 after next year, they will be in a better position than they were previously. Cap room is just as important for a team that understands it has to rebuild as depth. Adding Ariza and getting some cap space to add somethng else in the future has to be motivation for CP3 to stay. But if he leaves, they still have some decent talent and flexability.
The ‘mistake’ the Cavs made was not that they went after talent to keep LBJ, it was putting themselves in position that limited future moves (with or without LBJ). I like Jamison, but his contract is now a weight on Cleveland that we wish we didn’t have. Shaq’s contract which was actually richer, worked out better for us since it didn’t limit us beyond the year. Knowing who to extend a long-term contract to and when is a difficult job, that’s what GM’s are suppose to figure out. It seems like the Cavs are being very conserveative right now by not offering extentions an d maximizing draft picks and gaining cap space for the future. Once Jamison is gone, the only ‘significant’ contract we’ll have is Andy’s. The question is when is the right time to extend JJ? If he develops the way we believe he will then you extend early, if he doesn’t develop then you don’t want to extend, extending to late can cause you to lose him. Same with Eyenga and other talent that’s developing.
LeBron’s mental notes? Doesn’t really matter and I’m surprised he said anything. He’s already arguably the best player in the world, what more can he do that he hasn’t already done? Maybe he’ll try to put up 50 pts against the Cavs. Guess that would be some kind of statement against his old teammates – who haven’t said anything negative about him. Maybe he’ll not give an interview to Barkely or Magic or whomever else that has said LBJ should not have went to MIA. That wouldn’t be much of a statement either. Just not sure what his mental notes mean or how they will be reflected.
You guys are focused on Collison as the back-up PG, which is a short term vision. I’m focused on the very real long term prospect of Collison being the starting PG in two years, and a far more valuable player than Ariza.
Here is the question: Does Ariza get Paul to stay in NO in two years either by getting close or actually winning an NBA title? If the answer is no, then this is a bad deal for New Orleans. This isn’t like the Cavs bringing in Shaq who had one year left and trading away Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic. The Hornets traded a legit PG who CAN be an all-star someday, for a guy who has five years left on his deal and isn’t going to get that team out of the first round.
Nupe, your point on Jamison is exactly the reasons you shouldn’t like this deal for New Orleans. Jamison wasn’t good enough, neither is Ariza. Yet Ariza has five years left..so three left after Paul leaves. That harms that teams potential rebuild going forward…and that doesn’t even touch the fact they gave up real, young, cheap talent in return. Your final paragraph that asks the question of what LBJ can do that he hasn’t already done…how about win for a change?
Mike, I so very strongly disagree with you I can’t state it enough. I fully believe LBJ is number 2 behind Wade. The notion that LBJ is gonna take over a team from a guy who is THE BEST PLAYER IN THAT FRANCHISES HISTORY (yea, I’m hopping him over Alonzo already) AND HAS WON A TITLE seems insane to me. LBJ with no titles going to Wade’s team is going to be the number 1? I simply don’t see it.
BTW, the gap between LBJ and Wade in terms of statistics isn’t nearly as wide as some would like you to believe. Wade actually led the league in useage last year, and took the worst roster I’ve seen in years to 47 wins. To me, Wade is going to benefit more from playing with LBJ than LBJ is by playing with Wade. I truly, honest to god think Wade’s numbers will look better than LBJs at the end of this season. I very easily could be wrong, but I’m will to bet my house that the statistical gap is at the very least going to be non-existant between the two this year.
Rich, What I like about the trade for NO is that they were able to get a young athletic wing in Ariza for a reasonable price, plus he’s in his prime. They were able to get rid of Posey and will be paying Ariza about the same for the next two years but end up with a much better player. Ariza’s contract is a good value that doesn’t hamstring the team from making deals in the future, at his price and expected production he won’t be hard to trade in the future if needed. Jamison is/was way to expensive and his contract is harming the Cavs ability to make moves. He’s a good, but aging player that can still produce but not a great value. Maybe some team who’s just shy of making a legit run will be willing to trade for him (i.e. the Cavs last year), but don’t hold your breath.
Collison had a good year last year, but still an unproven talent. He may turn out to be much better than expected (kinda like Rondo), but you can’t count on that. Finding players in each position to fit together is more important than keeping two pg’s around for two year just in case one of them leaves. Is it a risk – absolutely, but you have to build an entire team. If they lost hope in keeping Chris (which I’m surprised they haven’t after his comments about him and Melo joinging Amare in NYC), then they should have traded him and would have likely got something even better in return. So, to John’s comment in the thread, my GUESS is that they have come up with some kind of understanding about what will keep Chris. And keeping chris, makes Collison expendable.
Did the Cavs have some sort of understanding about keeping LBJ when trading for Jamison? Maybe so..but that didn’t matter. I think it’s far more likely they made this trade hoping it appeases Paul, but with no commitment from him whatsoever..sort of the exact same thing the Cavs did.
Furthermore, I’d take Collison right now over Ariza with the knowledge that Collison wouldn’t improve at all. I already think he’s a better player.
If Ariza has another Houston type year of shooting sub 40%, then we can’t even make the arguement that Ariza is a bigger impact than Collison would have been, even with Collison in a back up roll. I don’t know if this even makes the HOrnets better for this coming season, let alone for years to come. They saved a small amount of money by moving Posey, but not enough to justify giving up Collison imo. If they could have moved Okafor, then that would be a different story.
i saw that some of the big name athletes met with the nba labor committee today. i hope someone is telling them parity is important. the way is see it a league with six or so Globetrotter teams and 24 Washington Generals might be fun for the stars that band together and the fans in the those few cities, but it will surely spell contraction for the league and less jobs and money for the athletes over all.
My guess is that the League will impose some form of franchise player rule, similar to what the NFL does. Allow teams to keep one guy (their star) with a franchise tag that gurantees a certain rate of pay. This would help prevent some of the player movement that made the Heat possible. If Chris and Melo end up in NYC with Amare next year, then it becomes a near certainty that something like this is imposed.
It’s a dual edged sword, players should be allowd to play for whomever they like but not to the detriment of the league. The NBA has had record ratings in recent years – without parity, but apparently several teams lost money. Would a league with more parity and the superstars/stars spread out more make teams more profitable? Certainly having LeBron made the Cavs much more profitable, like Melo in Denver and Kobe in LA and even Wade in Miami (even with a bad team).
Obviously I’m not sure what the answer is, but it also seems like teams should be able to find a way to make ‘binding’ agreements with players to stay on the team IF the team recipricates with certain moves. IF the Cavs made an agreement with LeBron that if they bring Jamison in, then LeBron would stay, there should have been something to hold LeBron to that. Same in NO if they should be able to make an agreement to keep CP3 IF the team management lives up to their side of the agreement. The teams take a lot of risk and spend a ton of money to build a working system. For a player to make demands (i.e. Kobe before getting Pau), then the team delivers and the player still leaves (after said agreement and money spent). There just seems to be something ‘wrong’ with that from an owners perspective. Some kind of mutual agreement clause maybe? Just pie in the sky I know, but there should be some way both sides could negotiate something.
Nupe – the cavs mistake was signing Jamison?!?! They were shackled by James signing a 3 year deal and NOT actively recruitung FAs to join them. The only thing they could do was trade for mediocre talent. That and Jamison basically laid an egg in a cavs uniform made this deal look awful. Like it or not James had everything to do with the position the cavs were in over the last 3 years and who they signed.
Have people missed the fact that Ariza was terrible last year?
New Orleans traded their best non-Paul asset for paint chipping, 3rd tier SF. Enjoy the 13th pick in the draft New Orleans.
ctowhilo – Yes, Jamison was a bad contract and a mistake. The Cavs were willing to take it on believing that LeBron would stay in Cleveland if they did so. Obviously the move didn’t work, and now LeBron is gone and we are ‘stuck’ with an overpriced Jamison. (BTW – I really like Jamison’s game and character – it sad that he’s now put in this situation).
MYoung23 – Ariza was far from terrible last year, he was 15/6/4 and a solid defender! Not bad for a 25 year old. He needs to improve his shot selection and accuracy, but how can you reasonably say he was terrible last year?
Maybe Ariza will really flourish next to a great player. The best he has played was in the playoffs with the Lakers. Maybe he can play like that again being next to Chris Paul..who knows. I do agree with MYoung though..he’s a 3rd tier SF that you just got by giving up your very best asset outside of Chris Paul. That’s bad enough, but he also happens to the play the possession that your franchise player who is probably leaving in 2 years plays and he could have been the guy to fill that major hole.